How the Opal Got It’s Rainbow, According to the Ancient Australians1
In the beginning, when the world was young, when the Dreamtime legends were being made, and all the beings of Australia lived under the diurnal blazing sun and brilliant night lights of the Milky Way.
In these endless lands the dingo, the emu, the snake and all other creatures lived in balance. Mankind navigated the vast deserts and dry seas by singing the songs of the Song Lines — ancient songs and poem-stories that codified landmarks and water features to sustain them on their epic journeys.
In this ancient world of both the materially-visible and spirit-invisible, the Rainbow Serpent was the sacred Deity that bought water and life to an otherwise dry and infertile landscape. Water in the desert was life. And the Rainbow Serpent journeyed from place to place, travelling across the heavens, snaking over in colorful arcs, leaving rainbow trail in skies, and upon the ground where serpent’s rainbow touched, gleaming pools and threads of precious water.
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